NaNoWriMo 2017; or, I’m writing about werewolves now

My friends and family know that November is NaNoWriMo month. According to my stats, I’ve participated 12 years now — TWELVE! — including a 10-year participation streak; and I’ve “won,” or written 50k words in November, three times. (I seem to recall four, but I might have stopped tracking on the website after a while when I was writing Daugment in 2014.)

So, yeah. It’s a tradition.

In 2014, I was working hard to establish myself in my then-new corporate job, so I told myself that if I was going to participate in NaNo, it had to be fun. It had to be all sorts of goofy and careless and unfettered, and only what I actually felt like writing.

The first draft of Daugment was an utter mess. But I loved it, because I could see the story it eventually came to be… and because it was really fun to write.

This year, I’m leaning into the success I had writing that book — with a wee bit more structure. I’ve taken some time the last month to get to know the story world and my characters Charra, Belario, and Minnor. I’ve let myself explore all sorts of random ideas, from scenes to plot points to recurring imagery, some of which I’ll keep and some of which will never make it in, thank goodness.

During the next two weeks, I’ll paw at my notes for this book (tentatively titled “Portent”) until it becomes something resembling a very rough outline. Then, as I do, I’ll go into a state of pseudo-hibernation for all but five or six days in November, and crank out 50,000 words of turd to polish. Or I won’t. I’m gonna try.

Oh, right. The werewolves.

Here’s my synopsis from the NaNo site:

Where did werewolves come from? Or, more simply: Wherewolves? Outer space, of course.

She’s the eldest child, a free-spirited dreamer. He’s the handsome son of a politician, the heir to a tiny far-flung empire-in-hiding. And he’s a wall guard — actually, he’s a member of a secret warrior society.

Maybe between the three of them, they can save Atlantis.

Yup. Alien-werewolves. You knew it wasn’t going to be that simple with me, didn’t you?